'Hafta vasooli sarkar': Congress takes swipe at PM Modi-led govt over electoral bonds 

Amid the ongoing Lok Sabha elections campaigning, the Congress party on Saturday released a video criticising the BJP government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, for its electoral bonds scheme. 

The video, which is 48 seconds long, was posted on the party's official X handle. This came a day after the BJP's 'vote for the G.O.A.T' song gained widespread attention on social media. 

The Congress party referred to the BJP government as a 'hafta vasooli sarkar' and encouraged voters to opt for change by voting for them. The video, viewed over 117.7K times, depicts a group of boys in a canteen compelling their peers to part with their laddoos as hafta, implying extortion, for residing in the college hostel.

Last month too, Congress launched a scathing attack on the BJP and PM Modi over the electoral bonds issue and dubbed the now-scrapped political funding scheme as Central government’s “Pradhan Mantri Hafta Vasuli Yojana (Prime Minister’s Extortion Scheme)”.

The Congress accused the Modi administration of engaging in extortion by pressuring companies with central agencies. They stated that 21 firms under investigation by CBI, ED, or IT have contributed funds to the BJP via electoral bonds.

Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said that the ruling party was operating four channels of corruption, which included the electoral bond scheme. 

“Today, we zoom in on the ‘Pradhan Mantri Hafta Vasuli Yojana’, the second of the four channels of corruption in the Electoral Bond Scam: 1.Chanda Do, Dhandha Lo 2.Hafta Vasuli,” Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said in a post on X.

A five-judge Supreme Court bench on February 15 declared the electoral bond scheme unconstitutional. Anonymising political party contributions was deemed excessive, as objectives like curbing black money and illegal election financing did not outweigh voters' right to information.

In 2018, electoral bonds were launched for sale at State Bank of India branches. Corporate and foreign entities donating through Indian subsidiaries received full tax exemption. Donors' identities were confidential, safeguarded by the bank and recipient political parties.

On March 14, the Election Commission of India uploaded the data it received from the State Bank of India on electoral bonds, which allowed individuals and companies to make donations to political parties. 

The EC published two lists. The first is of companies that purchased electoral bonds, along with the denomination and dates. The other has names of the political parties as well as the denominations of the bonds and the dates on which they were encashed. There is, however, no way of correlating the lists and finding out which company or individual had donated to which party. 

As per the data shared, Future Gaming and Hotel Services PR topped the list with bonds worth Rs 1,368 crore. Megha Engineering And Infrastructures Limited was second with bonds worth Rs 966 crore. 

At Rs 410 crore, Qwik Supply Chain Private Limited was a distant third, followed by Vedanta Limited at Rs 400 crore and Haldia Energy Limited at Rs 377 crore.